by Rex Stout
From the woods, some distance within, came the sound of rushing footsteps and rustling branches, and the detective pushed forward in that direction, calling meanwhile:
“Harry! Harry! Where are you?”
An answering shout came:
“Here! This way!”
Rankin went on, stumbling over hollows and fallen trees and scratching his face and hands on the low-hanging branches. The sounds ahead of him grew fainter, then suddenly swerved to the left and seemed to be approaching. Here in the midst of the woods the night was black, though now and then, through the interstices of the leaves, could be seen the faint shimmer of the last rays of the moon on the surface of the nearby river.
“Where are you, Rankin?”
The detective answered and thrust his way blindly toward the voice. The sounds of commotion had ceased. Two minutes later he came suddenly upon Harry at the edge of a small clearing.
“Is it you, Harry? Have you lost him?”
The young man nodded. “Keep still a minute.”
They stood there motionless, listening, enveloped in darkness and silence. The woods were still as the tomb; there was not so much as the sound of a rustling leaf; from a distance there came faintly on the air the murmur of the river in the shallows half a mile below.
“He got through the thicket to the bank,” said Harry at length, “and started downstream. Then he dived into the underbrush again and I couldn’t tell which way he went. I thought I heard him again, but it was you. He’s lying low not far from us right now.”
They listened another while, but no sound came.
“No use; he’s given us the slip,” the detective finally observed.
They turned reluctantly and made their way back through the woods. A match showed Rankin the face of his watch; twenty-five minutes past two. When they got to the open they found that in the short interval of their search the moon had dropped below the edge of the hills to the east, leaving the sky light and the earth dark. Tramping across the stubble, they crossed over the fence into the road, and five minutes later were at Greenlawn.
“You’re sure the fellow came out of here?” Harry was asking as they turned in at the gate.
Rankin replied that he was.
“That’s funny. I thought it might have been Fred, but of course he wouldn’t have run. I can’t understand it.”
A dim light could be seen in one of the upper windows of the house, in the room where Dr. Wortley was keeping his lonely vigil with the earthly remains of the dead Colonel.
All within the house was quiet. Rankin and Harry mounted the stairs together, without speaking; after the excitement of the past four hours the gloom of the house of death had dropped its heavy mantle over them at the threshold. At the first landing they parted, Harry to mount another flight and the detective to continue down the hall to his own room at the further end.
There he halted with a sudden appearance of alertness. He heard Harry’s footsteps traversing the hall above, and the soft opening and closing of a door. Then, instead of entering his room, the detective stepped noiselessly back down the hall and stopped before a door near the stair landing. He stood there listening intently for a full minute, then all at once raised his hand and rapped softly on the panel. When a second knock brought no response he noiselessly turned the knob and entered.
He stood there listening intently for a full minute, then all at once raised his hand and rapped softly on the panel.
The room was pitch dark. Rankin stood motionless just inside the door, without having closed it, straining his ear. When the utter silence had convinced him that the room was unoccupied he moved to the electric switch and turned on the light. One quick glance at the bed showed him that it had not been slept in, and with a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes he turned the light off again and left the room.
He stood hesitating for a moment at the top of the stairs, then turned down the hall to the door of his own room, and entered. The first thing he did after turning on the electricity was to take off his coat and shirt and have a look at the injured shoulder. An examination convinced him that it was nothing worse than a painful bruise. His movements were slow and mechanical, like a man lost in thought; and at length, with his hand stilt moving slowly back and forth over the bruised shoulder, he stood and stared fixedly at nothing with wrinkled brow.
Finally he pulled himself up. “Yes,” he muttered to himself, “but how the devil did he do it?”
Then, instead of undressing for bed—though it was nearly three in the morning and he had had no sleep—he turned with sudden decision and put his shirt back on, and his coat. A snap of the switch, and the room was in darkness. Placing a chair just inside the threshold (he had left the door open), he sat down to wait.
At the end of a minute or two he fancied he heard a sound in the hall, but peering cautiously out toward the dim night light at the other end, saw nothing. He settled back in his chair. It was upholstered in leather and very comfortable; after all the exertion and excitement of the preceding four hours his muscles found it restful and soothing. He twisted around to an easier position and stretched his feet out till they rested on the jamb of the threshold. He yawned. The sharp pain in his shoulder subsided a little and became a dull ache, throbbing rhythmically and not all unpleasantly. There seemed to be something restful even in that throbbing. He allowed his head to fall back against the soft leather and stay there. A dozen times he closed his eyes and opened them again . . . and closed them . . .
The next thing he knew he heard himself snoring.
He came to with a jerk and a snort, and got to his feet, telling himself that he had dozed off a second and that he mustn’t do it again. Perhaps he’d better look at his watch . . . it was twenty minutes to four! He had slept nearly an hour.
Cursing himself inwardly, he pushed the chair out of the way and entered the hall. Not a sound was to be heard—but yes, a faint, almost indistinguishable murmur of voices came from somewhere at the front of the house. Rankin stepped softly down the hall to the stairs; the murmur became louder, though still faint, drifting up the corridor leading to the right wing. Down it he went, less cautiously now, until he reached an open door through which a dim light shone from the interior. It was the same room in which he had found Fred Adams, early the previous evening, kneeling beside the body of his dead uncle and guardian. Rankin entered. By the light of the candles at the other end he saw the silent figure shrouded in white stretched out on the bed; and nearby, seated in easy chairs drawn side by side, and conversing in low tones, were Dr. Wortley and Fraser Mawson.
They looked up and nodded as the detective entered.
“Up so early?” the little doctor wanted to know with an air of relief at sight of him. To those who watch with the dead anything is a relief.
Rankin nodded and sat down.
“Couldn’t sleep. Soon be morning now.” He turned to Mawson. “You been up long?” His tone was that of one who makes conversation.
The lawyer had taken out his eyeglasses and was rubbing them with the corner of a handkerchief as he replied that he had been unable to sleep. “So I thought I might as well come in and keep the Doctor company,” he continued. “Though when I got here—it was three hours or more ago—a little after midnight—I found him dozing very well alone.”
“To tell the truth, I had dozed off,” Dr. Wortley put in somewhat shamefacedly.
“It was inexcusable. But it’s been a strenuous day, and I’m not as young as I used to be. I suppose I should have allowed Fred to divide the night with me—he wanted to—but the boy was completely worn out, and anyway I felt I owed it to Carson . . . And I went off like a log. When I woke up half an hour ago Mawson was sitting there.”
As the Doctor spoke Rankin was regarding Mawson from a corner of his eye. The disarranged hair, the soiled collar, the general air of untidiness about his attire, all these were
natural enough in a man who had been up all night in a house of bereavement; but what was the explanation of those two long scratches, one on his forehead, the other on his cheek, from which the blood had been carefully wiped away? Such scratches as might come, for instance, from low-hanging branches when making your way hastily through the woods at night.
For a while the three men conversed together, turning naturally to the virtues of their departed friend whose still form lay there beside them. The windows became grey squares as the dawn arrived, and when the light began to dim the rays of the candles the Doctor arose and pulled down the shades. At length Rankin left them and returned down the corridors to his own room; from below came the faint stirrings of the waking household.
“Yes, but how the devil did he do it?” muttered the detective once more as he took off his coat and shoes and got into a dressing-gown. Then he stretched himself out on the bed and slept.
When he awoke it was broad day. Going to the window and letting up the shade to look at the sun, he saw that the morning was half gone. In the rear of the grounds near the garage a man was playing a hose on an automobile; nearer, in the driveway, a dismal black conveyance proclaimed the presence of the undertaker. The blossoms of the garden were smiling in the sunshine, all unconscious of anything but beauty and virtue and happiness in the world they adorned. The detective turned away, his mind attacking freshly the problem of the day before as he began to dress.
Downstairs he found Fraser Mawson and Fred Adams and Dr. Wortley still at the breakfast table. Over the steaming coffee they discussed the details of the military ceremony to take place on the morrow; an officer from Governor’s Island was expected sometime during the day to confer with them. Mawson entered into the discussion with a naturalness and freedom that caused Rankin to wonder a little. Could he be mistaken? Had the lawyer really been sitting in that room upstairs during the chase in the woods the night before? If only he had gone there at once on his return to Greenlawn!
After breakfast the detective went in search of Harry Adams, and at length found him seated on a bench in the gun room with a bag of golf clubs at his side and an assortment of emory paper, cloths and oil; he was industriously polishing a midiron. The detective’s surprise at finding him thus occupied must have been apparent on his face, for the young man explained:
“They’re Uncle Carson’s, sir. I wanted—I just thought I’d polish ’em up a little. Don’t you remember how he always said a good soldier could shoot better with a clean gun? He used to keep after Fred and me because our irons were always rusty.”
The detective nodded and stood watching the gritty paper slide to and fro over the shining metal. But he had sought out the young man for a purpose, and presently broached it. Harry was surprised at first, and then, as he caught the other’s meaning, incredulous. Readily he agreed to follow instructions.
A little later, accordingly, the two men went in search of Fraser Mawson. They found the lawyer in the room at the rear of the lower hall that had served as Colonel Phillips’s office, arranging some papers, spread over the desk in confusion. It was with an expression of amiable inquiry that he turned to them and waved his hand toward chairs near the window.
Harry began abruptly:
“Mr. Mawson, I’ve come to see you about that United Traffic.”
The lawyer sent him a quick glance.
“What about it? I thought that unfortunate affair was settled.”
“It is as far as I’m concerned, sir. As far as I’m directly concerned. But you remember I told you about a chap named Warner that got me in on it in the first place.”
“Well?”
“Well, he’s in trouble. He got in too far and in trying to get out again he used some money that wasn’t his. Then the whole thing collapsed, and he’s up against it. They’re onto him.”
“What has that got to do with you?”
The young man explained, telling of the obligation he had been placed under to Gil Warner at college. He recited the circumstances in detail, while Mawson sat regarding him impassively and the detective gazed absently at nothing.
“I’ve got to do it, that’s all,” Harry finished. “Of course if I help him out of this scrape I’m through with him, for I see now he’s nothing but a crook, but I was mixed up with him in this United Traffic thing, and it’s up to me to stick—not of course that I knew anything about his using money not his own.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Why, sir, I thought you might advance me enough cash to fix the thing. It would take a little over fifty thousand.”
The lawyer was silent, frowning. He turned his keen eyes first on Harry, then on Rankin, and finally let them rest on the papers before him. With the fingers of his hand lying on the desk he was lifting a lead pencil an inch or so and letting it fall again with a series of sharp clicks.
Suddenly he demanded:
“What has Mr. Rankin got to do with all this?”
Harry replied imperturbably that he had gone to the detective for counsel and had been advised to make an appeal to Mawson for the necessary funds. Another silence, shorter than before, and the lawyer turned eyes that had suddenly grown hard on the young man, and said abruptly:
“Either Rankin is extremely clever or you’re an awful fool, Harry. It doesn’t matter which, since the result is the same. I had feared this—the fact, not the discovery of it—and yet it stuns me.”
The young man looked at him in puzzlement. “What do you mean, Mr. Mawson?”
The lawyer shook his head. “It’s useless, my boy. I can’t understand why you ever—did you think Rankin was so blind he wouldn’t see the coincidence between your urgent need for a large sum of money and the—the means of getting it?”
“What—you don’t mean—”
“I mean that if you attempted to leave this house now, or even this room, Mr. Rankin would probably insist politely but firmly on accompanying you. I don’t blame him. That’s his business. You have asked me to advance you fifty thousand dollars. That’s my business. Inasmuch as your uncle is dead, and as one of his heirs you are worth more than fifty times that amount, I can easily do so. I can get the money for you tomorrow morning in New York.”
Harry had risen to his feet and then sank back again into his chair as one stupefied.
“What—” he stammered, speechless at the horror of the thought, “you can’t mean to accuse me—my uncle—”
“I don’t need to. You accuse yourself.”
“But I—why—”
Another voice interposed, the voice of the detective. With a gesture of command he motioned Harry to be silent, then turned his eyes on the lawyer authoritatively. They were the first words he had uttered since entering the room:
“Mr. Mawson, let’s understand just what you are driving at. Do you accuse Harry here of murdering Colonel Phillips?”
The lawyer’s answering gaze was steady.
“I didn’t say that,” he replied calmly.
“Do you accuse him of being implicated?”
Mawson swung around in his chair.
“I’ll answer your question with another, Mr. Rankin. Do you accuse him of being implicated?”
“I’ll waive the precedence. I do not.”
“Then I don’t either,” replied the lawyer abruptly, and swung back to his papers as if the subject were closed.
“But I think I know who is implicated,” the detective went on, and stopped. Mawson kept his eyes on his papers, and Rankin resumed:
“This whole United Traffic deal looks suspicious, though I believe Harry to be innocent. It’s United Traffic we came to talk about. First, to relieve Harry’s mind, you will advance that fifty thousand dollars?”
“I’ve said I would,” replied the lawyer without looking up.
“That’s all right then. Now, Harry says he came to you for assistanc
e in realizing on his securities for that speculation, and that you helped him. That’s right, isn’t it?”
Mawson shoved his papers aside and raised his head to meet the detective’s eyes. There was a second’s pause.
“That’s right,” he said finally.
“Good. Harry also told me that he had previously gone to his uncle for assistance, and that Colonel Phillips had firmly refused to have anything whatever to do with United Traffic. Also, he advised his nephew to follow his example. That’s right, isn’t it, Harry?”
The young man nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Harry also told me that when he came to you for assistance he informed you of his uncle’s position in the matter and asked you to keep the transaction a secret. He did so inform you?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Well, it’s unimportant anyway. Here’s what I can’t understand. If the Colonel was so firmly convinced that United Traffic was a worthless speculation, why did he invest over half a million in it himself?”
A murmur of surprise came from Harry. Mawson’s eyes flashed into those of the questioner with a gleam of something that may have been anger. He made an evident effort to control himself, and succeeded.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” he replied calmly.
“You told me yesterday that he lost about three hundred thousand dollars,” pursued the detective. “You showed me the entry in one of those books recording the loss. Was that entry made by Colonel Phillips himself?”
